In the News
Stabilizing Patterson Park gains more control
DORI BERMAN
Daily Record, October 13, 2005
With the revitalization of Baltimore’s Patterson Park neighborhood well on its way, residents of the newly rehabbed homes want more services.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., yesterday announced a third round of federal funding aiming to provide them.
The Patterson Park Community Development Corp. will receive a $500,000 grant, earmarked in the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2006 appropriations bill, for the acquisition and development of vacant and deteriorating properties in an area known as Library Square, two blocks north of the park.
An independent supermarket, two small corner stores and two storefront churches are the only non-residential establishments in the area, a triangle of land bordered by Fayette and Linwood Streets and Pulaski Highway.
“We really think that there’s the potential for a lot more than that” said Bill Henry, the community development corporation’s deputy director of special projects. The corporation has hired the Reinvestment Fund, a Philadelphia-based consulting firm, to conduct a market analysis of Library Square and help the community guide its redevelopment.
Henry said those involved in the project envision restaurants, a dry cleaner, coffee shops, possibly a yoga studio or fitness center and other commercial establishments for the area.
“We’ve reached the point where we’ve brought in the density of discretionary income” to support those establishments, he said.
The president of the Patterson Park Neighborhood Association agrees that the residents will support those businesses once they move into the community.
“Up until now we’ve been getting in the car and driving to the dry cleaners, driving to the coffee shop,” said Mike Mitchell, a resident of the neighborhood for two years. “This could serve the whole neighborhood. There are 2,200 households in Patterson Park.”
The new grant, which Henry expects will be accessible to the corporation early next year, brings the total federal funding appropriated for the project to $2 million. The corporation will seek funds from the city and state to match the federal grants.
“That combined equity should help us leverage the financing that we’ll need to bring Library Square to fruition over the next several years,” Henry said.
The corporation plans to act as a “mall operator for a scattered site mall,” Henry said. It hopes to own the majority of the currently vacant commercial sites and recruit operators and tenants for the establishments. That would allow the corporation to maintain control over what type of establishments move in, and insulate tenants from certain hardships — such as eviction by a landlord wishing to sell the property.